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Ski Affair to Honor Women's Ski Jumping USA For Its Leap into the Olympic Winter Games Ski Affair to Rekindle 2002 Olympic Winter Games' ‘FireWithin' This fledging Women's Ski Jumping USA scored a triumphant coup earlier this year when the International Olympic Com-mittee (IOC) announced that for the first time women will participate in ski jumping com-petition in the Olympic Winter Games begin-ning in Sochi, Russia in 2014. Spearheading this effort to have the sport become an Olym-pic games event was the WSJUSA, which was established in 2003 and is headquartered in Park City, Utah. The IOC made the an-nouncement April 6, 2011 in London, site of the 2012 Olympic Games. The historic leap will merit special recog-nition from keepers of the skiing history of the region, the Ski Archives at the J. Willard Marriott Library at the University of Utah. Established in 1989, the archives has become one of the most comprehensive caches of ski history in the nation and is used by histori-ans, writers, reporters and researchers world-wide. The recognition will be one of the highlights of the 2011 Ski Affair. "Women's ski jumping has been growing over the past 10 years, but inclusion in the Olympic Winter Games is what our sport needed to take the next step," enthused Lindsey Van, the 2009 women's world ski jumping champion and member of the VISA Women's Ski Jumping Team. The primary goals of the non-profit WSJUSA are to have women Nordic ski jumpers worldwide recognized for their ac-complishments and to foster development level athletes throughout the United States. It promotes the sport by interacting with Na-tional Governing Bodies (NGBs) and the International Ski Federation (FIS). It was a magical time that storied February in 2002. Festive, friendly, frenzied. One million visitors. Curling and skeleton. Bobsleds and trading pins. Building wraps and presidential visits. Tears of triumph, laughter of hospitality houses. Pomp and patriot-ism. Speed and grace. Medals and media. They were all here. Ah, those were the days -- days of historic proportions. In observance of the 10th winter season since the Olym-pic Winter Games of 2002, those fond memories will be rekindled with an "Olympic flashback" during the 2011 Ski Affair, an annual launch of the ski season in the region. The annual gath-ering of ski enthusiasts will occur on Thursday, Oct. 27 at the Little Amer-ica Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. The event annually is a fund-raising activity for the University of Utah J. Willard Marriott Library Ski Archives that house one of the coun-try's most comprehensive collections of skiing and winter sports history. Proceeds from the event are used to identify, collect, catalogue and make available to researchers, writers, histo-rians and reporters film, photos, spe-cial collections and related items dat-ing to the earliest days of winter sports in the region. And, quite appropriately, among the Ski Archives' most prized collec-tions are the records, photos, film, documents, bid books, and media ma-terials from the Salt Lake Organizing Committee of the Olympic Winter Games of 2002 (SLOC). Medal-winning ski jumper Johanna Kolstad of Norway as he appeared at Ecker Hill in 1933. (Alan Engen Collection, P0413_#01_04_189) We lit "the fire within". We proudly welcomed the world. We carried the Olympic Torch throughout the region. We volunteered - 50,000 strong. And we triumphantly set the standard for planning and staging the Olympic Winter Games of the future. The iconic Olympic Caldron was a beacon of world peace through sport as it towered over Olympic Stadium in 2002. (Olympic Experience Collection, P0932 #001_01_58) |
